@nascarcasm: Awful Luck Power Rankings

I don’t know WHAT 2020 had against seven-time champions with a dedication to fitness and perfect grooming, but holy missing horseshoes was it brutal to Jimmie Johnson. It started with an atypical self-spin while leading at Darlington, and after that, the misfortunes just piled up like cars into the tire barrier at the Roval. Johnson missed the playoffs for the second straight year, but regardless, he will always be a champion in our book. Just do Alex Bowman a solid and find an exorcist to expel whatever demonic spirit possessed that car this year. I think there are a few on Craigslist.

If 2019 was the blockbuster season, 2020 was the extremely disappointing sequel. Kyle Busch managed to KFB (yes, that’s a verb) his way to the second round of the playoffs, but that’s where his complete lack of luck ran out. We should add that despite being winless in 2020, Busch still impressed us by piloting wreck-mangled race cars way beyond what was expected. If Busch declared the car “killed” or “junk,” you can rest assured he’d get it back into the top 10 before, well, probably getting caught up in another wreck. Because 2020.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. gets blamed for a lot of things. If you only followed NASCAR via in-car sound bites, you’d assume his full name was “F---ing Stenhouse.” Personally, I think he’s a blast to watch, especially on superspeedways. But this year, he got swept up in a lot of on-track misery that was not of his making. It’s bizarre. I mean, I thought maybe 2020 had it out for mullets, but Noah Gragson’s still doing OK, so I dunno. Shrug emoji.

Matt Kenseth deserved the benefit of the doubt. He had been out of the race car for some time, and when he returned, he had no ability to practice or shake down the ride he was taking over. But after a promising first race back at Darlington Raceway, his season seemed cursed, yielding only one other notable finish – a runner-up at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I mean, remember New Hampshire Motor Speedway when he spun three times?! That’s like wet Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval level. But the news is not all bad – the Green Bay Packers are currently undefeated.

Man, it started out so promising. But fate can be cruel and handed him a boom-or-bust series of finishes throughout the season. Ryan Blaney might still be in the playoffs, if the Round of 16 was not a non-stop flurry of punches to the groin for the No. 12 team that resulted in a swift elimination. He still has two victories to be proud of, though – the .007-second win at Talladega Superspeedway and, of course, the genetic lottery.

We’d like to extend an honorable mention to a pair of individuals upon whom the sun never seemed to shine. Johnny Sauter and Daniel Hemric experienced their fair share of on-track misery this year and have been chosen as the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series and Xfinity Series representatives. Due to Sauter’s radio transmissions after he has been hit with bad luck on track, we have opted to not let him make an acceptance speech.

Seems that with 2020 being 2020, we've had more drivers experiencing terrible misfortune on a weekly basis than usual. We last power-ranked those with the absolute worst luck in August, so we figured we’d provide a much-needed update. Enjoy!